The Red Maverick
by Scuttlest
Summary: A novelization of the flashback fight scene between Sigma and Maverick Zero in X4. Rated T for minor violence, and slight paranoia on my part.


**Is it just me, or is the fic titles and summaries the hardest part of them? The fic's themselves come to me fairly easily, yet...**

**Anyway, the summary says it just fine, this is my novelization of the scene between Zero and Sigma in X4.**

**I should note, i'm not entirely sure who the leader of the squad that Zero killed is actually called, it sounds like Sigma calls him "Garma" in the scene, so that's what I call him here, but if it's actually something else, well, nothing that shall be done at this point.**

**Ah, now to start. Review and all that typical junk.**

The two hunters stared with twitching eyes at the entrance to the uncovered base. It seemed like just an abandoned bunker of some sort, but it turned out to be something much more terrifying.

The team, led by Garma, had reported a red Maverick and had attempted to neutralize it. Which just one Maverick, it looked like it would be an easy victory. Yet the two hunters had heard nothing but screams across the intercom for close to two hours before they stopped. Before it went silent, one word, spoken by Garma himself, was heard.

"Unstoppable."

Both hunters kept their eyes trained on the entrance to the bunker that had been discovered. The entrance doors were slightly cracked open, it felt like the red Maverick could burst out at any moment, ready to unleash it's terror on them.

_No way am I getting anywhere near those doors._

One of the hunter's slightly shivered, terrified of the thought of the red Maverick appearing through those doors, if only a miracle could happen. He had radioed for help, and a reinforcement had been sent. The hunter was slightly tempted to radio back and demand something more. The Maverick had slaughtered one of the best Hunter units single-handedly, and they thought "a" reinforcement rather then "some" reinforcements would be able to subdue him?

"What's our current status?"

The hunter managed, barely, to resist the urge to jump at the sound of the sudden voice. It felt as if any word he heard could be the war-cry from the red Maverick. Turning around, he saw… the last person he would have expected to see.

"Commander!"

Commander Sigma. The ultimate leader of all Maverick Hunters. Their light, their shining beacon, perhaps it was for the best they had sent "a" reinforcement and not "some" reinforcements after all.

"Where's that red Maverick that wiped out Garma's unit?"

The two hunter's swiftly saluted in response to the presence of their commander.

"In… inside… he's inside that door."

The hunter's terror was still there, but it had disappeared slightly in response to the inspiring presence of the greatest reploid of all time.

"You may leave now. I'll take care of this personally."

The hunter shook in slight terror, Commander Sigma, alone? Against that monster, that red Maverick? Was Sigma sure about this?

"By yourself, commander?"

"I don't want anymore of my people being sacrificed."

Sigma walked past the two hunters, heading toward the facility. This was about justice, pride, maybe even vengeance. He had known Garma personally, it was better for a friend of Garma to end the red Maverick.

With his metal fingers through the cracked opening, Sigma's pure physical strength pulled the door open, to the left and right. It was almost pitch-black in there, he didn't have an infra-red system implanted in his eyes. He only saw what the light from outside could show him, and it was enough.

Taking a few steps forward, Sigma saw a figure, predictably, a red figure, hunched over, his… it's… back toward Sigma.

Those few steps forward Sigma had taken had produced enough sound to get the figure's attention. Still hunched over, it pivoted it's body to look over it's shoulder. It's eye was cold and the gleam was murderous.

Having just barely processed that an intruder had come into his abode, the red Maverick turned completely around and began a charge at Sigma.

Sigma was caught slightly off-guard. The Maverick who had annihilated Garma's unit… he expected something with a greater understanding of tactics. This red Maverick instead charged at him with nothing short of blind aggression.

It took only a split-second for Sigma to regain his composure, and stood calmly at the entrance as the red Maverick charged forward, it didn't appear to have any clear weapons, and based on how it was posturing it's body, it was likely just going to try and punch him.

The Maverick charged straight up to Sigma, swiftly bringing a fist forward, only for the blow to completely miss as Sigma suddenly moved to the left, with a sudden glance behind him, the red Maverick his foot, again it missed Sigma, but it punched a hole into the wall, which swiftly triggered an explosion.

Sigma took several steps back, he needed to be clear of the smoke that was left behind by the explosion. It was natural that the Maverick would simply chase at phantoms and distortions in the smoke, wearing himself down and allowing Sigma a quick victory.

"…?"

Sigma's calm state of mind was briefly disrupted when, rather then chase after smoke ghosts, he saw the Maverick calmly walking out of the clouds straight in Sigma's direction.

_It's smarter then I anticipated._

This was an appropriate time to rely on his own offense, Sigma began a charge forward to meet with the red Maverick's own charge, he needed to assess the Maverick's precise offense power before he could consider how to fight the Maverick and further.

The red Maverick seemed to be the quicker, admittingly, and Sigma was not able to start his own attack before the Maverick threw another punch, which Sigma managed to dodge by putting all his weight on one leg and leaning himself away from the red Maverick's punch.

It did little to deter the Maverick however, who continued to swing his arms toward Sigma. If the blow the red Maverick's leg had given to the wall was any indication, these punches must have had at least train-stopped power behind them.

In between one punch and another, Sigma took his chance to counter, bringing his leg and foot forward, he attempted to spin his foot to the side of the red Maverick's head. It raised a hand in defense, blocking the attack from hitting at full force, but having not been entirely balanced, he was disoriented enough for the attempted attack to knock him down.

The red Maverick flew through the air slightly. With a small yelp, it crashed into several nearby barrels and stopped its movement. Sigma paused, trying to determine if it was an act or not, but then began taking steps forward, with the intention of ending the Mavericks life.

His speculation of the Maverick having been playing possum were proven correct when it suddenly raised it's head and began another charge. As expected, another barrage of punches, the Maverick had power, but limited tactical reasoning.

It was almost childishly easy, then, for Sigma to grab the Maverick's arm and toss it overhead and straight down into the floor, the Maverick didn't have time to process the sudden movement, nor the forceful slam into the ground, before the ground suddenly sailed away from him as Sigma tossed the Maverick straight up into the air. The Maverick flew head-first into the ceiling, tearing a hole in the ceiling and kicked up a cloud of dust. The Maverick just stayed there, hanging in the ceiling.

That was only for a moment, though, as the Maverick brought his hands up and pushed upon the ceiling, after a moment, his head broke free, the Maverick's face bore not an expression of pain, but a smile.

_I see why Garma and his unit died. This Maverick has amazing resistance to pain and damage._

There were several pipes near the area the Maverick had crashed into, placing his hand on one, the Maverick swiftly and effortlessly tore it out.

The Maverick dropped down as Sigma jumped up, he tossed the broken pipe in Sigma's direction, only for it to be swiftly knocked aside, though this seemed to not impress the Maverick, who brought his fist down, which connected with Sigma's fist. A distinctive energy build-up was felt by both of them, eventually tossing them both back.

The Maverick was not impressed, and returned to his basic, and insistent, barrage of punches, slowly, but surely, Sigma was left with no choice but to jump to the upper rafters.

The Maverick jumped to an opposing rafter only a few meters from the rafter Sigma was on.

_How long has it been that a Maverick has lasted this long against me?_

Swiftly, Sigma grabbed hold of a strange object on his hip, tearing it off, a beam of light ignited from it, a beam saber.

The Maverick, having no such weapon, improvised by tearing off a metal rod, one of the rods that was supporting his rafter.

The two combatants lunged at each other through the air, their weapons connected with each other. For a moment, time seemed to freeze and they hanged in the air, their weapons silently warring against each other, until seemingly disengaging from this particular exchange.

As they fell, Sigma swung his beam saber again, which was easily blocked by the red Maverick's rod as they hit the ground. The two swiftly jumped back to give them time to think and react again.

They charged again, weapons in hand, this time they were on the ground as they did it, both yelling war-cries as their weapons collided with each other, this time, the Maverick's weapon was slashed in two.

_He's disarmed, I must take this chance._

With little space between them, Sigma lunged forward, intent on ending the fight now.

Rather then a look of horror, the red Maverick instead had the largest grin it had yet shown, catching Sigma off guard as it charged at him again. The blade from Sigma's saber completely missed the Maverick, and instead, as he ran past Sigma, the Maverick grabbed hold of the arm that held the saber and pulled it with him.

The momentum from moving forward with Sigma, and being pulled back by the Maverick was more then the arm could take, and it tore off from Sigma's body. Shots of pain moved completely through Sigma as he instinctively reacted to the fact that he now had only one arm.

Turning around, Sigma could only handle his fierce warrior expression for a moment before he had no choice but to let his reflexes take over and moved his intact hand to the broken end of his arm.

The maverick, on the other hand, simply began laughing as it walked forward, approaching Sigma.

_No… how did it do that… so fast… no chance to react…_

Two hours had gone by, yet to Sigma, every second had felt like a month. It seemed as if time itself had twisted its logic to torment him by showing him what he was going through longer than he ever needed to.

The red Maverick was making sadistic sport of him.

The synthetic skin that covered his face has been partially torn off, the circuitry beneath his armor had been exposed in multiple locations. He didn't even know what further damages he might of incurred from these horrific beatings the red Maverick was submitting him to.

He didn't have the ability to think, as a solid uppercut from the red Maverick knocked him face-first onto the floor.

He tried to get up, but was swiftly stopped by a hand that went across his lower face and began to pull up. Sigma let out a groan of pain as the owner of the hand, the red Maverick, began to laugh at his pain. Laughing, nothing else but laughing with sadistic glee.

Then something unexpected happened.

The front gem on the red Maverick's forehead began to glow, and it wasn't pleasing to the red Maverick. After a moment, the glow died down to reveal a strange W across the emblem.

_What do you think you're doing, Zero?_

The Maverick couldn't continue his torment of Sigma, as a pain linked to the W shot through his head. The Maverick took several steps back as his hands reflexively went to his head in a mad attempt to lessen the pain by clutching his head.

It gave Sigma the time to get back up on his feet, he didn't have the time, nor did he care to ask, why the Maverick was suddenly in such pain. All that mattered was capitalizing on this sudden opportunity.

Charging forward, Sigma made a single motion with his fist, bringing it directly into the W on the emblem that seemed to cause such pain for the Maverick.

The crystal of the emblem cracked and burst as Sigma's fist dove into it, the bits of crystal embedded themselves in Sigma's hand, crushing his belief that he couldn't be put into worse pain then he already was in.

From the force of the punch, the red Maverick was thrown back and onto his back on the floor, he made a small movement before settling onto the floor.

"Look. It's Commander Sigma!"

The two hunters had been observing the entrance ever since Sigma had walked in. It felt like a burden had been taken off of their shoulders to see the commander walking out alive.

"Incredible. Now I'm certain there's no one who's a match for the commander…what?"

The hunter had failed to notice the state his commander's body was in. He was missing an arm, his face was torn up, every piece of his body seemed to be covered with wounds, there was no pattern or design on his body that hadn't been maimed or destroyed.

"Take that red Maverick… to the repair center… and… and call Dr. Cain… I wish to have that Maverick studied…"

Sigma breathed heavily as he approached the two hunters. Their shining beacon, their hero and savior, was broken and battered, maimed and mutilated. Yet by his words, the red Maverick had been neutralized, still, there was the issue of his well-being.

"Commander… are you okay?"

In a move uncharacteristic of the gentle giant of a commander, Sigma brought his still connected hand out and pushed the hunter out of the way.

"Silence!"

The two hunters were left to stare at their half-destroyed leader as he marched away. They couldn't have begun to suspect the ramifications of what had just occurred. No one could.

Except, perhaps, for the man behind the enigmatic W.

* * *

**You know**, **I prefer to not have such a "specific" fight scene. I think it's better to keep the action a bit more vague, detailed, but vague, that allows you to write extended fight-scenes without writting unnecessary amounts of text. Most **_real_** novels i've read have fight scenes that are technically shorter, but don't "feel" any shorter because the general discriptions paint images vividly enough in my mind.**

**Hmm. Anyway, i'm decently proud of this fic, i'm reluctent to outright praise my stories, even privately with only ymself. I daresay i'm my own harshest critic. Ignoring incoherent flamers.**


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